Swachh

The old man was well ahead of his time in more ways than one! He had installed dry sanitation systems in his hermitage. He was an advocate of sanitation systems that do not use copious quantities of water to transport pee and poo. None of the old man’s disciples who formed government truly understood his maverick ideas…be it on sanitation or on education! Anyway, we will speak on the old man’s ideas on education elsewhere. Regarding sanitation, let us read one of the pieces that the old man wrote on 13th September 1925, which appeared under the title ‘Our Dirty Ways’ in Navajivan

Both excretory functions should be performed only at fixed places.

To pass urine anywhere in a street, at any place not meant for the purpose should be regarded an offence.

After passing urine at any selected place, one should cover up the spot well with dry earth.

Lavatories should be kept very clean. Even the part through which the water flows should be kept clean. Our lavatories bring our civilization into discredit; they violate the rules of hygiene.

All the night-soil should be removed to fields.

“. . . If my suggestion is followed, no one would need to remove night-soil, the air would not become polluted and villages would remain very clean.”

Cut to 1947!

Probably the most damaging non-indigenous concept that we adopted unthinkingly is one of water-based sanitation systems. Both versions of “drop and store” and “flush and forget” sanitation systems have caused irreparable damage. Improper disposal of feces and wastewater has led to pollution of our waterbodies. Pathogens from the waste pollute our water and food and eventually pollute our own bodies. When 80% of the diseases in India are a result of improper sanitation, much more than one’s own health is affected. Specifically, 73 million working days are lost annually due to sicknesses caused by unsafe water and lack of sanitation. The economy of India as a whole is impacted since people must pay for visits to the health centre and on occasion lose their jobs because of an inability to go to work.

So, is there a magic wand? The old man, we all know we are talking about MKG, would have wanted each one of us to use the magic wand! Had he lived few more years, the next contest he would have announced would have been on a toilet system. But of course, for the old man liberty meant universal responsibility!

If you are a bit tired by now and are looking for some semblance of a technology solution, the good news is many attempts have been made and continue to be made to develop sustainable sanitation systems. The main objective of a sustainable sanitation system would be to protect and promote human health by providing a clean environment and breaking the cycle of disease. In order to be sustainable, a sanitation system has to not only be economically viable, socially acceptable, technically and institutionally appropriate, it should also protect the environment and conserve natural resources.

Here are some sustainability criteria:

Health and Hygiene:includes the risk of exposure to pathogens and hazardous substances that could affect public health at all points of the sanitation system from the toilet via the collection and treatment system to the point of reuse or disposal and downstream populations. This topic also covers aspects such as hygiene, nutrition and improvement of livelihood achieved by the application of a certain sanitation system, as well as downstream effects.

Environment and Natural Resources:involves the required energy, water and other natural resources for construction, operation and maintenance of the system, as well as the potential emissions to the environment resulting from its use. It also includes the degree of recycling and reuse practiced and the effects of these (e.g. reusing wastewater; returning nutrients and organic material to agriculture), and the protection of other non-renewable resources, e.g. through the production of renewable energies (such as biogas).

Technology and Operation:incorporates the functionality and the ease with which the entire system including the collection, transport, treatment and reuse and/or final disposal can be constructed, operated and monitored by the local community and/or the technical teams of the local utilities. Furthermore, the robustness of the system, its vulnerability towards power cuts, water shortages, floods, earthquakes etc. and the flexibility and adaptability of its technical elements to the existing infrastructure and to demographic and socio-economic developments are important aspects.

Financial and Economic Issues:relate to the capacity of households and communities to pay for sanitation, including the construction, operation, maintenance and necessary reinvestments in the system. Besides the evaluation of these direct costs, the external costs and indirect benefits from recycled products (soil conditioner, fertiliser, energy and reclaimed water) have to be taken into account. External costs include environmental pollution and health hazards, while benefits include increased agricultural productivity and subsistence economy, employment creation, improved health and reduced environmental risks.

Socio-cultural and institutional aspects:the criteria in this category refer to the socio-cultural acceptance and appropriateness of the system, convenience, system perceptions, gender issues and impacts on human dignity, the contribution to food security, compliance with the legal framework and stable and efficient institutional settings.

The old man would have concurred with these principles. Ok! So, what kind of products at household level and systems at city level come about by using these principles? Well, let us begin with products. In different contexts, the products would be different.

In the urban institutional context, one product from the sustainable sanitation movement is the “waterless urinal”. The waterless urinal is a product which saves between 40,000 to 75,000 litres of freshwater per urinal seat per year. In this context, IIT Delhi has taken a lead and converted about 100 urinals in the academic complex to waterless urinals. The conversion of existing urinals to waterless urinals has been carried out by Ekam Eco Solutions – an IIT Delhi based startup company. To know more about Ekam Eco Solutions, look up www.ekamecosolutions.com

In the rural household context, there is the “urine diversion dry toilet” which opens up the possibility of treating pee and poo as resources! The yellow line output “pee” could be used as liquid fertilizer – rich as it is in nitrogen and phosphorous and the brown line output “poo” gets composted – so as to ensure pathogen destruction before being used as soil conditioner.

Globally, India has the largest number of people, more than 620 million still defecating in the open. About half the population of India use toilets.

India, at the current rate of progress will only achieve the sanitation target of MDG 7–c in 2054.

Applying sustainable sanitation at city scale, one begins to study nutrient cycles – Phosphorous and Nitrogen recycling. City scale sustainability requires adoption of closed loop approaches – in which the phosphorous and nitrogen which came from the farm and fish, through the food into our bodies, return to those very ecosystems. A global research coordination network by name Phosphorous RCN is researching into global P cycle to better understand P sustainability by recycling Phosphorous effectively and also by enhancing its use efficiency.

What can you do to promote sustainable sanitation? You can join UNICEF’s digitally led campaign to campaign for open defecation free India “Take Poo to the Loo”. But why this campaign? Because, daily 620 million Indians are defecating in the open. That’s half the population dumping over 65 million kilos of poo out there every day. If this poo continues to be let loose on us, there will be no escaping the stench of life threatening infections, diseases and epidemics. Log on to the website www.poo2loo.com and take a pledge to campaign for eliminating open defecation.

If you would like to promote sustainable sanitation by installing product in your office or home, visit the webpage of IITD startup company www.ekamecosolutions.com or call CEO Uttam Banerjee on +91 9999807207.

– Dr Vijayaraghavan M Chariar is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Rural Development and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He is a joint Faculty at IIT Delhi’s National Resource Centre for Value Education in Engineering where he delivers courses and workshops on “Wisdom-based Leadership” for professionals and institutions. Dr Chariar’s research interests are Design for Sustainability, Traditional Knowledge Systems, Ecological Sanitation and Wisdom-based Leadership. He has been a mentor to several youth who have taken the path of social entrepreneurship. Dr Chariar serves as Chairman of the sanitation startup Ekam Eco Solutions. He was awarded the Fulbright Visiting Professorship 2012-13 as part of which he affiliated with the College of Technology and Innovation, Arizona State University, Mesa, Arizona. Dr Chariar is a sought after speaker on entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability. He has several publications and patents to his credit.

Are Waterbodies the poor man’s sewage sinks? And are the city’s poor doomed to live in areas prone to chronic sanitation, drainage and water logging problems?

The results of a GIS mapping based study done by FORCE[1] and funded by GIZ[2] as a part of its ICPP program, certainly seems to say so. This study was done to explore the linkages between water bodies in Delhi and resettlement colonies.

In terms of the status of sanitation in resettlement colonies, the study echoed the observations often voiced by Non-profits – that those are not substantially better than the conditions in unauthorized slums. The alarming fact revealed by the study is that prima facie, it seems that the poor sanitation condition has a far more basic genesis than was earlier assumed.

So far, social workers have assumed that the poor sanitation conditions are only because of a lack of co-ordination between the multiple authorities involved in rehabilitation of the poor. Delhi has a unique problem in this respect owing to the duality in its governance by both the central and state governments. Our detailed case studies verified this fact but also revealed another shocking fact.

Our detailed case studies revealed that it took a minimum of 10 years and upto 26 years from the time of construction to bring sewer lines into a resettlement colony! Organized garbage disposal systems seemed to be last on the priority list of the planners since it is not present even after 26 years in some areas. This means that for atleast 10 years, the residents of a resettlement colony live without any access to sewage and garbage disposal systems.

The resultant unscientific, unplanned and unhygienic coping up methods followed by residents are largely responsible for the horrible state of sanitation in these areas.

The most critical revelation of our study was, however, was that the Resettlement colonies were doomed to be plagued by sanitation problems from the day they were conceptualized. The reason is that there seems to be a clear tendency of Resettlements to be located within the core catchment of one or more water bodies.

In 90% cases, water bodies[3] are located either within the boundaries of the resettlements or within a 1.5 km buffer zone. Thus, the land selected for the resettlements was topographically placed in a depressed zone. As a result there was an inherent tendency of the area to be waterlogged – an observation that was verified by the interviews conducted with residents of those areas. More importantly, the negative slope would make it difficult or very expensive to link the area’s internal sewerage and drainage with the peripheral trunk lines.

The fact that after 1990, there seems to be a clear trend towards locating the resettlements in the northern peripheral wards of Delhi, further writes the obituary of sanitation. Being the outermost, least developed parts of Delhi, there are no sewer trunk lines or garbage disposal points in the vicinity of any of the new resettlements. Hence, even if internal sewer lines are laid, there is no planned outfall for the sewage. The high water table in these areas makes the situation worse, as it not only makes sewage disposal difficult but also makes the groundwater more susceptible to contamination due to sewage seeping from internal drains and water bodies.

Thus the study unfolded a dual tragedy – the institutionalization of the neglect of Water Bodies and the neglect of the poor. It has shown a deliberate act of the government in choosing to make resettlement colonies within the core catchments of water bodies. Not only is this disastrous in terms of sanitation provisions for the resettlements, it sounds the death knell for water bodies too.

The key conclusion that emerges from this study is that, water bodies are playing the role of sanitation waste sinks even for planned resettlement colonies. In view of this and the fact that the choice of location makes the resettlements vulnerable to failure of sanitation systems, the policies governing Resettlement Planning need to be re-examined.

(Excerpt from a working paper on Delhi’s Water Bodies and Sanitation[4])

For more information on the topic or for discussion, you are welcome to email to jyoti@force.org.in

This summer, while travelling to some of the worst drought affected rural areas of Odisha and Chhattisgarh, I bumped into about three broad scenarios as far as ‘toilet use’ is concerned. First, many villages – especially the remote ones majorly inhabited by indigenous communities – had no toilet at all; second, a few villagers had toilets but most remained unused; and third, where there were a few toilets, only the aged and ailing were using them. Of the approximately 20 villages I visited, I could safely say that 99 per cent of the people practiced open defecation, even though toilets were available for about 10 per cent of the population visited, and a few more were under construction.

The 2014-2016 drought period has had a phenomenal impact on use of toilets in rural areas as these villages have been afflicted with severest of water crises in their lifetime. The world is getting hotter by the day and India’s water resources are declining in a fast pace owing to the growing temperature and related impacts. 2014 was the hottest year in the history of meteorological records, that was broken by 2015 and now with 2016 all set to break that record.

Climate change is to blame for this. Just consider the decrease in water availability of Mahanadi river, India’s sixth largest and lifeline of both the states mentioned in this article and it is clear that mere possession of toilets would not mean that people would use it. The river has deficit in water yield by as huge as 10 per cent in recent decades owing to decreasing monsoon rainfall due to climate change.

In normal times too people don’t use toilets because of lack of water supply. In times of drought, when people have to travel more and spend up to 300 to 400 per cent more time in collecting water – as observed during my study in these villages – people would for sure abandon the toilets. This exactly what they relayed to me.

For toilets to be used, besides many other factors, water security is a must. Or else, we need to invent effective dry toilets, which currently seems to be a distant dream.

– Ranjan Kishor Panda is a known expert on water, sanitation, disasters and climate change in India. Awarded as the first ‘Green Hero’ by NDTV-Toyota in 2010 from the Honorable President of India for his contribution to water issues, he has more than 25 years of experience as a practitioner of sustainable water harvesting and management, researcher and writer. He has also received several other awards and has been felicitated by many organisations starting from grassroots organisations to UN houses. Currently he leads several regional and national advocacy networks on these issues. Two prominent of them are the “Water Initiatives Odisha” and “Combat Climate Change Network.” He has also worked at the international level on water management research and advocacy, has been invited to various foreign countries/institutions including universities to speak on these issues. He contributes to various media publications and is a global award winning photographer. Contact: ranjanpanda@gmail.com

In July 2016, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation released the framework of engagement with the private sector. This framework should bring more clarity in the involvement of the private sector into mainstreaming their involvement in achieving the ambitious, imperative and achievable goal of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).

While we may celebrate the attention that sanitation has finally got from the ramparts of the Red Fort to all the way down, we have to accept that challenge is huge and catch the bull by the horns. And the emphasis is on ‘we’.

Already two years down the line as we race towards achieving the target of 173 districts to be declared ODF by March 2017 and the whole of India Swachh by 2019, the country is way behind target.

According to a July 2017 report, of the total 12 crore toilets to be built a mere two crore have been constructed. Only 17 of the 683 districts have turned ODF since the programme began in October 2014.

After a review of SBM by the PM in June this year, implementation of SBM (Grameen) has been divided into two phases. In the first phase, strong focus will be on 173 districts across 23 states. The objective is to turn these into ODF districts by next year. While these districts may be considered low hanging fruits, the challenge cannot be underestimated. For a challenge so huge, is it fair to expect only the government and its machinery, and a few development actors, to make this happen?

If we seriously reflect, we do realise that our support is required.

Sanitation is everybody’s business. It’s time for everyone to get engaged in whatever they can do best. Already several celebrities have committed their time on national campaigns. The SBM logo can be found across all ministries and sectors. The push for sanitation and the elimination of open defection has never been stronger.

It is now time to roll up the sleeves and get down to working on the ground: Build toilets and convince people to use these, making ‘going out’ history.

So what is it that the industry can do? A lot as it happens. In several forums the private sector expresses helplessness as to not knowing what they can do. So, while the intention is there the ‘how’ is missing.

This is where partnerships come into play. When people and institutions with a common vision and objectives work together, bringing their unique skills and strengths, the unthinkable can happen. Open defecation CAN become history.

So what can the industry do?

Be a trailblazer: Commit and contribute to the SBM as it drills down to getting districts open defecation free. This means offering financial and other support for implementation.

Visit the DC and commit: The District Collector/ CEO has the mandate to make the district ODF. Visit the Collectorate offices and offer unstinted support. Understand the status and the challenges.

Identify and support a development partner at district level: There are several development agencies who have experience on working with the government officials and communities around sanitation. But they need your support.

More often than not, this will mean delving into your pockets and providing financial support so that the partner can focus on doing what’s required for eliminating open defection. Together, and with the Collector, make a plan, identify the gaps and then fund the gap.

Engage your staff and workers: This will help motivate and develop a sense of ownership over the company’s efforts in sanitation. Get the staff to visit villages wherever and whenever possible. Make them sanitation ambassadors.

Monitor progress and evaluate efforts: This will help keep the progress on track and also address bottlenecks.

Raise funds: Develop and manage a crowd funding campaign and take responsibility for the fund use.

Engageothers: Motivate others in your circle to adopt a district and do what you have done.

Document, share and celebrate your efforts: Sharing knowledge and experience encourages and informs others. One such effort has been the collaborative effort between FICCI and IPE Global a global social development consultancy company to document the sanitation efforts of the private sector under CSR.

Gandhiji said, “Sanitation is more important than political Independence.” The industry had a major role to play during the struggle for freedom and post-independence overall development. This sector must again rise to the occasion and help India get rid of open defecation, once and for all. Imagine the satisfaction of directly contributing towards a clean India, of preventing violence, saving lives and helping children reach their full physical and mental abilities.

What is Swachh Bharat? How’s it going in the field truly? Is the government really delivering on this mission? We are bombarded with such questions every day whenever we are introduced as people working sanitation. The problem with that question is that it somehow places the whole issue external to the person asking the question – they are honest seekers of information, but at the same time that they are asking these questions disturbs me.

Here is why these questions make me somewhat unhappy. I am, what is somewhat jestingly called, a development professional…which makes people think of me as either the NGO-jhola (sling bag) type, or the white collar professional sitting in air-conditioned offices writing about development issues, strategies, or “romanticizing” poverty. Admit it – these are the two categories you have already put me in as you are reading this! I have to admit that I am somewhere in between. What is most compelling about my work is that it allows me to collect stories and experiences that heavily influence the work I do – to be an impatient optimist to bring change for the poorest and to spread equity with the underlying belief that all lives have equal value. … Hold on, I am getting to my point about why those questions disturb me. There are many stories I could tell to drive the point home, but let me start with a few…The first story is about one of my journeys when I was leading a trip to see programs “in the field”. As part of my preparatory work I had to spend the night in a village with some colleagues. We slept under the stars (the romance part) on charpoys (jute strung cots). We had been warned to stay close and not wander off at night, since the area was known to have snakes, scorpions and other wild creatures we wouldn’t necessarily want to encounter on our own – more because a bad encounter at night would also disturb my colleagues’ much needed sleep. But come 4:30 am, nature called, and I had to find a safe place to answer it – in pitch dark, scared of venomous creatures waiting to pounce- , and brave the bushes I could find – looking carefully over my shoulder that I wasn’t a tourist site for fellow villagers, colleagues. The story ended happily for me. I managed to find relief and came back quietly and laid down. Ah! the relief that the episode ended and that soon we would be on our way….but wait what about all the other people that shared my starry night? Where do they go in the morning, afternoon and night – every day, every night? How do they deal with this? And the answer is that they do what I did every day of their lives, looking / walking carefully for any creatures – animal, insect or man that might pounce on them and attack, ridicule and humiliate them while they answer the call of nature at not the most convenient times. So they plan what they eat, how much they eat and drink, regardless of what they should and how much they need to eat and drink to stay healthy. And they are attacked and humiliated….even if it’s a soft snigger as they walk past. So for them, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is late in coming…they have needed it for so long and they need it now. SBM is not a regular government delivery program ; it is not something we can be skeptical about; it is not also a research program; or a political agenda – it is life and death for them – more often than we would like to imagine.

The next story is about a group of women in Trichy – who work as sanitation motivators. They live in a slum, and didn’t have money /space to construct individual toilets. So, after years of scrambling around in the dark, seeking private places in an ever-crowded space to answer their biological need to urinate and defecate, and walking through the waste that others left outside their homes in the open spaces, they petitioned and got a community toilet built in the area. They now spend hours keeping it clean, being vigilant to keep their slum from becoming a place for people to use as a big open toilet, and looking after general repairs. It is now a part of their everyday life to worry about the community toilet – no broken windows, taps, doors….and often end up paying their own money to keep it going…till they are reimbursed from city budgets…..For them SBM is a key need to ensure that their toilets and that of so many of their fellow city dwellers are kept clean, usable and well maintained. It’s now their lifeline – literally…or else where will they go? Is SBM working for them?

The question really is – what have all of us l done to ensure that our cities allow Lakshmi and her brothers, sisters, children, parents in the slum to go freely to a safe, clean toilet when they want, eat what they want and spend time learning, earning and living healthy lives that we take for granted as the rhythm of our life? Can we help my village hosts imagine a world where safe sanitation is a matter of routine for everyone, everywhere?! Something they can take for granted the same way we do! Remember the desperation you feel when you have to wait in queue “to go” at the airport, during a large meeting – now imagine that desperation everyday….

Now let us imagine another reality – that all of us have access to a clean toilet, that the waste is safely collected and disposed and not dumped so that children diving into a natural body of water, are actually jumping into clean waters and NOT into all of our waste? That the water we drink is not tainted with our waste, and that fellow Indians who can’t access fancy RO filters, still get clean water….everyone, everywhere needs this basic facility – not just us….everyone!!

Because honestly, that is what SBM is! It’s not a government program. It’s not a political agenda. For Lakshmi, for my village colleagues, for the citizens in the country living in slums, it is the difference between life and death! Can we honestly sit back and watch this from the sidelines, externalize the issues and ask such inane questions as “Is SBM working?”. The question we should be asking is “How can we make this work? What can I do to ensure it works?” Shouldn’t we all be in the trenches – before we have no sidelines left to watch from? Join SBM –….be a part of the Swachh Bharat Mission. How? you ask? Be brave and stop someone from littering…organize community meetings and tell everyone who needs to know about the Mission. Read what the poor are entitled to and spread the word on their rights – to anyone you meet who you think would benefit from knowing about this. Meet your local politician and find out what she is doing to contribute to the mission and how you can help. Because no one person can create a Swachh Bharat – it has to become Mera Bharat Swacch – safe sanitation and a Clean India for me!!!